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Conversion Rate Optimization

There are numerous things to consider when building a website. It’s not just about making it look good, it’s also about converting visitors into paying customers. In this post, I will show you the key ingredients to building a successful website that converts like a charm.

Before going into details, here are some interesting facts you should know:

You have 10 seconds to convince your visitor that your website is compelling. If the first impression is bad, the majority of visitors leave and never return.

A/B testing can help you decide what design works best. It’s not just about what you think looks good. By consistently running tests, you can improve your conversion rate and make your website shine.

A website must have a clean and simple design. Make sure the most important information is easy to find.

Website speed is directly correlated to how the website is structured and how it is designed. A one second delay can have huge consequences in your conversion rate.

Without any further ado, here’s how to build a great converting website.

1. Use powerful headlines to send your message

A good headline is very important to tell your visitors what your company does. It is the first part a new user sees when lands on your website and it’s critical to catch their attention in the first few seconds.

While there is no secret formula to writing headlines, think what resonates best with your customer’s needs. Give them a reason to try your service. Run A/B tests with different variations and use the headline that converts best.

Here’s an example of a good headline from Uprise.io. In just a few words, they gave plenty of reasons for you to try their product.

Another great example is from the payments service called Stripe. With a simple headline, they introduce you to their platform and you can already get familiar with that they do.

2. Use Call To Action buttons

Catching your visitor’s attention is not everything. You should also find ways to get them into your system and eventually convert. Use call to action buttons and convince your visitors to try your product. Some of the best buttons variations are:

Sign Up Free

Free Trial

Start Free Trial

Start Free Account

Register For Free

Give It A Try

Try It Now

Get Started Now

Another important thing to consider is the color of your buttons. Many studies, including one from SumoMe suggests red buttons convert best. Green and yellow are performing good also.

Keep in mind that a call to action button doesn’t necessary has to be a button. It can also be a sign up module. For example, look at how DigitalOcean is allowing their users to start a new account simply by entering their email and password.

Another example of a call to action button that stands out is SumoMe. With a large green button, it’s almost impossible to miss.

3. Let people see and try your product

Always show the product to your users. Give them screenshots and make a video tutorial showing the main strengths and benefits of using your tool. Selling online services is similar to selling in a physical store. Users want to touch and test the product before buying.

It’s true that you can’t touch a digital product, but you can at least make a better idea about it, by looking at some screenshots and videos.

4. Use a clean and simple design

There is no reason to pile everything in one page. Actually, the more landing pages you have, the higher the chances to convert your users. When building a new website, use a very simple and intuitive design.

Feeling like there’s nothing else you can do to increase your revenue and conversions? Don’t, because there is always room for improvement, as I am about to demonstrate in this article. I will show you how we got 40% more users on MonitorBacklinks.com how we increased the e-commerce conversion rate by 74% and the revenue by 210%.

Before I start, let me tell you a little about Monitor Backlinks, so you understand what the website target is.

Monitor Backlinks is an SEO tool that allows users to manage all their website’s backlinks, and of their competitors. The tool has a 30 days free trial and we had two types of conversions. One for the users that signed up for the trial, and the second for those that decided to subscribe for a paid plan.

Getting started

We asked ourselves the following questions:

Is the website intuitive and easy to use?

Is it clear that we offer a 30 days free trial?

Do we have tutorials for non experienced users?

What is the overall user experience?

How do we ask for user’s feedback?

What users convert the best?

Finally, I asked a friend to check our tool (he had very little SEO experience), and tell me if he understands how Monitor Backlinks can help him.

As you can see, most of the questions were related to the user experience and usability.

Analyzing the current traffic and creating a plan

When your goal is to increase your website’s conversion rate, you will first have to analyze the data you currently have. For that, we checked Google Analytics, and also the messages received from our users. These are some of the things that we discovered immediately:

1. Our bounce rate was close to 62%. This gave us a clear signal that there was a lot of confusion about the tool. Many did not understand how useful the tool can be for their business and left from our website after viewing just one page. To decrease the bounce rate we had to offer more information and tutorials for non experienced users.

2. Next, we checked the messages received from our users. There were many questions, asking very simple things like “How do I start?” or “How the tool can help me?”. This was another sign that our visitors were confused.

3. From my experience, I know that a blog is crucial to any business. It’s a great way to drive relevant traffic, and conversions. Monitor Backlinks blog had little content and did not offer the information the users expected.

4. Our backlinks checker page was indexing all the search queries of our users. Therefore, if a user wanted to check for the backlinks of a gambling website, a page about gambling would have been created on our website and indexed in Google. We found this to be a potential threat to our search engine rankings, so we prioritized this for a fix.

After a few days of analysis, we decided that these are the things we have to concentrate on:

Make the user understand more about the tool, by creating more content and tutorials

Create a better blog, and write useful articles

Create video tutorials

Ask for user’s feedback

Find a fix for the indexed pages about gambling and adult content

Make the website load faster

Without any further ado, let me show you what changes have lead to higher conversion rate, and revenue growth.

Homepage changes

Our homepage was converting very well already, so we only had to make a few minor tweaks.

1. We changed the “start free trial” button from blue to yellow, and we have created a “features” page, to which we have included a button on the top menu.

2. Next, we have changed the selection of where our website has been featured, with more relevant websites to the SEO industry. This time, we have used logos with colors. The module was designed to help us gain trust.

3. The last change we did to the homepage was to increase the size of the module “backlinks checker”.

Creating a new blog

We had to change everything on the blog. I mean layout, design and structure. Here’s a side-by-side comparison with the old version and the new one.

It’s obvious why we prioritized the blog for a change, right? The previous design did not look professional and had a very low conversion rate. So, here are the changes that we made:

1. On the top of the blog, we have included a fixed bar, with a go to action button. This module has become one of our best converters simply because it’s hard to miss, and it invites people to try our tool for free.

2. On the right sidebar, we have added a module with a quick introduction to Monitor Backlinks.

3. To keep our users engaged on the blog, we have added a module with the most popular articles.

4. At the bottom of each article, we used another actionable button, inviting users to start a free trial.

All these changes leaded to 311% more visits and increased our blog’s conversion rate from 0.5% to almost 4%.

Get better conversions

We have made quite a few changes so far, and the results were already starting to show, but why stop? There was still room to make more improvements.

Monitor Backlinks has a 30 days free trial, and we had to find a way to convince the users to subscribe to a paid plan, before the trial ends. During the 30 days period, the user could have used all the features offered by our tool, just as a paid user would be able to do. We decided that we must differentiate the trial version from the paid one.

1. Therefore, we have limited the trial version to see only 40 backlinks for each domain. We were still showing all the backlinks, but we blocked the additional information with the message “Subscribe to view now”.

2. We have also limited the user ability to export reports, during the 30 days free trial.

3. At the top of the page, we included a module showing how much time the user has left from his trial.

Increase the user experience

1. To make the user understand how Monitor Backlinks can help, we have created a few video tutorials on how to get started, and a quick tour of the tool. We wanted everybody to have access to these tutorials, so we have added them as a pop-up, right after the user signs up for his trial.

Then, we decided to send these tutorials to all users, via email so they can familiarize with the best practice.

2. Another thing that we have done to increase the user experience was to write more high quality articles and step-by-step guides on our blog, based on the users interest.

3. Last, we increased the website loading speed, by moving the tool to a better performing server. This has helped our website load three seconds faster.

Achievements

The results speak for themselves. All the changes that we have done in January and February have helped us double our paid users and increase the revenue by 200%. The Ecommerce conversion rate has increased by 74%. Below is a screenshot comparing January with March conversions.

And this is a screenshot comparing January with February conversions

Conclusion

To find new opportunities to grow your conversion rates, you have to put yourself in your customers place. Try to understand what they would like to see on your product, and how you can improve it.

Asking for user’s feedback is necessary for any business. You can do this via email or by using survey forms on your website.